


and the rest is rust and stardust

by fluorexcence



Category: The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 12:10:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17263964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorexcence/pseuds/fluorexcence
Summary: Marco and Celia. Shakespeare’s doomed lovers had nothing on them.





	and the rest is rust and stardust

When Isobel wakes to a knock on her door (more accurately described as a thud) at 2 o’clock in the morning, she does not expect to find Marco on the other side. She does not expect him to sweep her up into a fierce kiss without so much as a hello (it’s been ages since she’d last seen him, and even longer since they were anything like _this_ ).

She pulls away when he, with some difficulty, unties her robe and pushes it down her shoulders, leaving her in a worn chemise. 

“Marco,” she says, and although her mind is screaming at her not to question it, to just take his affections where she can get it, there is the unmistakable smell of whiskey on his lips and she has too many questions not to. 

(She’s always been curious)

He backs her into a wall, shutting the door behind him with his foot, pulling her thighs up and crashing his mouth against hers again. Her hands tangle in his hair, grapple with the buttons on his jacket. 

“Marco,” she tries again, between desperate kisses. “You’ve been drinking.”

He pulls back and regards her cooly. “Yes.” He is still holding her up against the wall, and almost unconsciously Isobel tightens her legs around him. Marco takes this as encouragement and dives down, pressing sloppy kisses to her collarbone. 

Isobel can’t help it – she gets lost in the sensation of his kisses and touches and it makes her want, and so she closes her eyes and pulls at his shirt, wanting him bare. Marco gathers her wandering hands and pushes them away, focusing instead on undoing his suspenders and getting his trousers down enough to free his cock. He pushes inside her with a groan, resting his forehead on the wall above Isobel. 

She moans as he moves within her, and it feels so good, and she wants this to last forever. “Bed,” she gasps out, and Marco obliges her, carrying her to the adjoining room and dropping her down onto the covers. He is on her quickly, and Isobel tries to slow him down, make him take her slowly.

_Once, he was inexperienced and eager to please. Once, they spent a morning tangled in his bedsheets in that tiny flat, and after he taught her about charms and she’d felt so happy she thought her heart would burst._

He pulls away from her touches, then pulls out of her all together, and she whimpers at the loss. “Turn around,” he all but pleads, and so she does.

As she stands on hands and knees, she feels him enter her roughly from behind, his hands tight on her hips as he fucks her. She lays her head on her hands and moans, coming hard and fast. Marco soon follows, and he bites her shoulder as he comes. He falls beside her, sweaty and spent and she is pleased that when she cuddles up to him he does not pull away. She drifts off.

Sometime in the night, as Marco dresses to leave, he pauses over Isobel’s sleeping form, gently stroking her hair. “I love her, ‘Bel,” he says into the dark. He presses a kiss to her temple and leaves quietly. 

In the morning, Isobel feels empty and strangely calm. She makes tea and idly shuffles her cards as she waits for it to brew. 

***  
Celia has always been a physical person, grounded in the real and tangible. It’s what she was taught since she was a child, from sliced open fingers and broken wrists to willing a jacket to become a raven. It was all real, cleverly disguised as illusions. That’s what makes _this_ , this attraction or pull or whatever it is between Marco and herself so difficult. 

When they’re together, every nerve is electrified and she feels as though her whole body is thrumming with an energy. She cannot and does not try to deny that she finds him attractive, but she also finds him witty and clever, and kind and decent and that is far worse (dangerous). The gossamer touches and presses of bare skin make her tremble. She feels lost when she wants to be found and grounded in something real. And this, this cannot be real, not in the way Marco whispered to her one night at Chandresh’s. Celia doesn’t let her heart dwell on it, or she is sure she will break. 

When they are apart, she can’t focus, can’t sleep. It’s as though there is an invisible cord connecting them, and when they are too distant the cord pulls at her heart and threatens to snap. She feels as though she is falling and the sensation of being lost is only stronger. She’s taken to spending nearly all her free time in the Ice Garden, where she finds the ache tempers a bit. 

Tsukiko mentions something about it not going away until she truly looks to her heart. Celia sips her tea and tells her friend that it’s not possible. 

Some nights, when Celia lies awake at night, aching and pining after something she cannot quite name, she wonders if she is like her mother after all. Emotional, needy, words that her father often flung as insults. 

What could be more base, more weak, than feeling? 

But then, she remembers Marco’s gentle touches and heated kisses and emerald hazes, and she knows that this is not the same. What her mother felt was infatuation.

Hector Bowen is not capable of love. 

Celia sits at her vanity, picks up a silver handed knife and slices away at her fingers. She waits until she feels dizzy to begin healing them, and for once her mind is focused singularly on closing the bleeding wounds, and no thoughts of Marco or her father or this bloody competition come up until she goes to sleep. 

***  
Marco wants to forget, to leave. He knows he and Celia are doomed, he knows that their story can only end in hurt and suffering. Look at what it has done already. 

He decides to get drunk. He goes to some pub not far from his current flat and drinks cheap whiskey until he cannot walk straight. He eventually finds his way outside, and he tips his head back to stare at the clear, starry sky. His eyes close, and he is overwhelmed with the scent of her perfume, the softness of her curls, and the way their lips fit perfectly together. 

He wants to scream. Instead, he finds himself at Isobel’s, and his kisses are full of lust and longing. He wants to forget Celia. He wants to be able to fall in love with Isobel, live a normal life with her. Maybe it would be mundane, but sometimes Marco feels envious of the mundane. Perhaps Mr. A.H. robbed him of that life. 

He can’t bare to look her in the eyes, and takes her from behind, rutting into her roughly. His grip is too tight on her hips as he slams into her, and he knows they will leave bruises the next day. When he comes, he bites Isobel’s shoulder to keep from crying out her name, and he is grateful to this girl, the closest thing he has to a friend, for letting him be weak and take some comfort in her, even if it is just one night. Marco leaves and hopes that Isobel will find the perfect man for her and marry him and live happily ever after. 

***  
Marco doesn’t usually dwell on his pre-student days, back in the poor orphanage that was always cold and always gray. He does, however, remember the church they used to have morning prayers in. He wasn’t particularly religious – he still isn’t – but the way light filtered through the stained glass and created shimmering rainbows in an otherwise dull and damp place seemed like a kind of magic in itself. 

He finds himself sitting in the pews of a church one evening. It’s not the same church, this one is much more beautiful, but the ambience and sense of calm he feels is the same. Marco misses Celia terribly. Their one night of love and passion seemed like something from a dream, concentrated into dust and put in one of Widget’s bottles to relive from time to time. It was almost poetic, he thinks, that it was tragedy that brought them together that night. It was death. 

Shakespeare’s doomed lovers had nothing on them.

There is a faint rustle of silk as Celia lowers herself next to him in the pew, a good foot of distance between them. 

“You were right, you know,” Marco says dully. “I thought- I hoped that you were mistaken. I spoke to him, after the last time we were together.”

Celia does not turn, but he can see her mouth twitch up into a sardonic smile. “Don’t you know? I’m always right.”

Marco tilts his head up, fixing his gaze on the moonlight filtering through the arched church window. “She apologized, Celia. She thought you were in love with Herr Thiessen.”

Gently, Celia lays a gloved hand on Marco’s arm. “I know. Isobel and I spoke before she left the circus.”

Marco’s gaze falls to Celia’s delicate hand, wrapped in black lace. He lifts her hand towards him, ignoring the way she stiffens as his other hand moves to pull at the glove. 

“Marco–“

He hushes her with a kiss, closing the distance between their bodies and clasping her bare hand with his own. The kiss is deep and fierce and it leaves Celia feeling dizzy and breathless.

“Tell me, Celia,” he demands against her lips. “Tell me.”

Tears come, unbidden, rolling down her cheeks and wetting Marco. She moves to pull away but he holds her tighter. “Tell me.”

“I _can’t,_ ” she cries, wrenching herself away. She seems to crumple into herself, her shoulders shaking with soft sobs. Marco runs a hand through his hair, frustration and hurt evident on his face. 

“At least have tea with me, Celia. Please.”

She sniffles but nods, and they make the short walk to his flat. It is raining, and Marco entertains her with small water charms, making drops bounce off Celia’s nose and go straight up, then zigzag to the side. He feels slightly better when it does make her smile. 

“It seems we aren’t real,” she begins as he hands her a cup of tea. She is settled in an overstuffed armchair across from Marco. 

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we are only here, together, at night. We’re like something from a dream, something that disappears once the light of morning comes.” Her tone is not as much sad as it is thoughtful.

“We can make it real. We can make the circus independent,” Marco says fiercely. She opens her mouth to speak but he rushes the words before she can say them. “And you are _not_ going to kill yourself, Celia.” His voice is sharp and she flinches, tears welling in her eyes. 

He is off the sofa and kneeling at her side in an instant. “I love you, Celia Bowen.” She looks at him, lashes wet, but his heart soars when she smiles. She stands them up, resting her forehead against his chest. His arms slowly wrap around her, holding her tightly to his body. 

They stay like that for some time, not speaking, but enjoying the comfort of each other’s presence. Celia is the first to pull away, and her eyes are clear when she stands on tiptoe to kiss Marco, sweet and chaste. Linking her fingers through his, she says, “Take me to bed, Marco.”

He grins, sweeping her up and carrying her bridal-style to his cluttered bedroom. They fall onto the bed, his lips never leaving hers and they laugh when their teeth clack and when Celia’s earring gets caught on a loose thread on Marco’s shirt. 

Marco undoes the buttons on Celia’s dress, slipping the silk gown off her and leaving her in a corset and stockings. Celia lifts her arms up like a child, waiting patiently as Marco unties her stays, pulling her corset off and gently rolling down her stockings. When she is bare to him, Marco pulls back to see her. 

“Beautiful,” he declares, and then he is back on her, her legs wrapping around his waist as they kiss. Celia fumbles with Marco’s jacket, pulling at the sleeves while he shrugs it off, tugging his suspenders off his shoulders and unbuttoning his oxford with deft fingers. He sits up for a second to shrug his shirt off as Celia’s delicate hand presses against the growing hardness in his trousers. At her insistent tugging they too are removed and join Celia’s gown on the floor of his bedroom. 

Now completely bare to each other, the two lovers are a tangle of limbs and bedsheets. Marco kisses his way down Celia’s slim body, starting at her bow lips, down to her jaw and sternum, pausing to take a small breast in his mouth. Celia gasps and arches up into him, and he resumes his descent, kissing her stomach and her hip bone. 

Celia giggles when he kisses her inner thigh, then inhales sharply as he spreads her open, and then he is pressing hot kisses to her center and her hands fly to tangle in his hair, her hips bucking into his mouth. She keens softly when he presses his thumb firmly against her clit, and she knows she cannot wait.

She very nearly yanks him upwards, and his lips are slick with her as he captures her mouth in a kiss, and she almost chokes on the sweetness. He is hard against her stomach, and she needs him inside her this minute. 

“Marco, please,” she says breathily. 

He slicks his cock against her slit, bumping her clit each time. “Tell me, Celia,” he says, softly but it is clearly a demand.

Celia loops her arms around his shoulders, kissing him sweet and true. “I love you, Marco Alisdair,” she says, and then with one push he’s buried to the hilt inside her. 

Holding Celia in his arms, he’s abruptly reminded of how small she really is. He knows all about the days when she was denied food, denied sleep by her father and he feels a burst of protectiveness and anger. He is stilled within her, and he traces her collarbone gently. “Never again,” he promises, and he knows she understands when she pulls him down on top of her. 

Never again will they part, never again will she suffer, never again will he be alone. 

He fucks Celia in long, deep strokes that elicit low moans, and the tightness of her cunt alone makes him want to come. It is slow and gentle at first, but quickly becomes more passionate and soon he is taking her hard, making her throw her head back and wail out a long moan. 

She is flat on her back, legs tight around Marco’s waist and he holds her hips as he thrusts, enjoying the way her breasts bounce with each stroke. His grip tightens. “Again. Tell me again.”

Celia is lost in the sensation of pleasure and only looks helplessly as she nears her peak. Marco slows, fucking her in punctuated, short thrusts. “Tell me, Celia.”

She does. She tells him that she loves him, has always loved him, tells him how big he is inside her, how close she is. 

He rests his forehead against hers and meets her eyes. “Come, love. Come for me.”

Her body obeys and she comes hard, whimpering into his mouth as he keeps fucking her, one hand find her center and thumbing her swollen little clit in even strokes. She keens as she comes again, and she is so tight and warm around him and she loves him, and with a low moan he comes, filling her up. 

Marco holds her face between his palms, kissing her nose, her cheek, her mouth. He pulls out of her gently, making her whimper softly as he rises to look at her. Celia is panting, a rosy flush in her cheeks and continuing down to her sternum. With each shaky breath she takes, her small chest rises and falls. Their skin, damp with sweat, sticks together, but neither find it unpleasant. 

Marco flops on to his back next to Celia, and she cannot help but laugh. Here he is, this boyishly handsome man who is a genius and who loves her. 

He turns his head towards her, grinning, and when they kiss it is not desperate. It is a kiss sweet and true of lovers who are destined to be together, unhurried and gentle because they know they will always have each other.


End file.
